mad
Member
Another retort to the idea of chopping the CC up.
Well, there are only three matches left in Yorkshire’s season, but the coaches and Bean’s team-mates will know more about their new colleague after the home game against Essex and the visit to Surrey.
At the same time, even if Bean does well, Gibson will be careful not to praise him too much too soon. It is the trickiest of judgements. Even players who have a good first season can have their games dissected six months later and their careers destroyed. And folk wonder why I become impatient with people who tell me that county cricket is soft. Overseas players, even those with burgeoning Test careers don't seem to think so.
But let's have a last look at Fin Bean's record.
The indispensable Cricket Archive first records him playing for Yorkshire Under-14s against Derbyshire Under 14s at New Rover Cricket Club, Richmond Oval, in Leeds on June 5, 2016. Sadly, though, it won’t tell you much else because these things are dependent on the information fed into them and although Yorkshire won that match by eight wickets and Bean was not out, we have no information as to how many runs he scored.
Delve deeper and you will find hundreds of matches, many of them for Yorkshire's age-group sides, a few for England Under-19s and 76 games for York in the Northern Premier League – but then they say club cricket is soft, too.
Most spectacularly of all, you will find the match played at the Nottinghamshire Sports Ground this June in which Bean made 441, the highest individual score ever recorded in the Second XI Championship, for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire.
By the time he was bowled by Calvin Harrison, he had batted 712 minutes, faced 518 balls and hit 52 fours plus three sixes. It is the sort of achievement that will get into next year’s Wisden but it does not mean that Bean will make it as a professional.
A lot of guff is talked about at the end of the cricket season. Yes, there is a certain sadness about the game in England ending for six months – already I'm wondering where I'll be in the last week of September – but I'm also looking forward to reading and thinking about other things, in addition to my winter writing schedule.
Somehow, my summers on the circuit have always been enriched by my life away from the game. And how many of you would like to spend an entire year watching four-day cricket or anything else come to that?
Yet one of the sweetest things about the final few games of the season is seeing a young player make a good debut and wondering where his cricket will have taken him by the time the leaves on the trees are green once more. The sight of such cricketers in early autumn should seem ironic but instead, it is fitting. It serves as a reassurance that there will be another season – when other young Yorkshire cricketers will be challenging for places in the team.
And once again, without really intending to do so or even mentioning his name until now, I find that I have written a response to much that Andrew Strauss has been proposing over the past few weeks.
If the number of first-class games is reduced and if county cricket becomes nothing more than a laboratory in which England players can be tested, the number of contracts available for players like Bean will be more limited. No doubt I'll return to this theme over the next month, so for the moment all I'd like to do is wish Fin Bean the very best as he tries to cut it in professional cricket. I hope even Lancastrians would join me in that.
Don't think we're far off now
People will be collecting signatures at the Somerset game so should far exceed the number required especially on Tuesday which is the day of the forum and forecast is very decent
As an aside did anyone listen to former Surrey player Mark Ramprakash yesterday who said on TMS that 10 FC games are simply not enough to produce English Test Match players.
I still cannot fathom why a proud county cricket club like Warwickshire - who have done so much over the years to advance the county game including that big loan to help Essex build their ground at Chelmsford and loans to help keep Surrey afloat when their ground was all ramshackled - would countenance a massive downgrade of the championship.
Last year people commented that the championship format was a bit silly but at least Warwickshire were worthy champions as they'd been forced to perform well in 8 of their 14 matches - wins v Notts twice, Essex, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Somerset alongside very noteworthy draws away to last years favourites Essex and this years pre-season favourites Lancashire. In 6 other games Warwickshire underperformed quite a bit including the defeats to Durham and that crazy penultimate game v Hampshire.
If as rumours suggest the championship is downgraded to just 10 games it would only take a fortnight's worth of inclement weather to reduce this allocation to 8 and then you'd have a situation where a team could win the title by only really showing up for 3 or 4 games and drawing a couple of others - especially if the new rudimentary points system is introduced.
Warwickshire need to demonstrate solidarity with the county game, the hundred's of potential future county cricketers out there (just look at the success of the SACA initiative, which on a shoestring budget of £50,000 now has sufficient players to field 2-3 sides - players all chomping at the bit to get a county contract - and those are just the more senior guys), the county members and county cricket supporters more widely.
They've done brilliantly once again.
The pitches for the test match and finals day were superb let's hope for two more good pitches to finish the season
Another insightful post here this time on the Yorkshire forum earlier
These circus T20 events are going to lure freelance cricketers regardless of the shape or composition of the county championship so cuts to it won't have any positive impact with that regard
Strauss really is a piece of work, isn't he. Patronising and insulting people as self-interested if they disagree with him, a man for whom self-interest is a way of life. Feigning regret that he is constrained against changing the 100. The counties, again slow off the mark, should never have let him run the review. He has a personal interest in the outcome apart from anything else.
This media appearance and newspaper text is just rather crude negotiation conditioning and pressuring. And, as people have mentioned, contains muddled thinking. If there are pretty much 365 days a year global t20 leagues then that is a de facto split in the game. What he says is superficially plausible, but I am not sure how his plan works in that 365 t20 world any better than any other plan that involves significant CC, test and 50 over cricket.
He seems to be (probably deliberately - because of course he is cleverer than us) conflating the issues of performance standards and top player availability/enthusiasm for CC, test and 50. The CC, 50 and 20 over competitions should just plan to get on without them as this is going to happen anyway according to him.
Don't contort the domestic game just so we can see Dawid Malan bat once or twice a season.
Edit for the benefit of a WCCC committee member who might be reading this;
"Don't contort the domestic game just so we can see Chris Woakes bat/bowl one or twice a season"
I would have thought the bigger issue is the potential for the top players to choose global t20 over home and away tests. Test cricket is very likely going to have to get on without many top players as well. Mr Strauss is right to say that there is a global revolution going on. But his plan is, ironically, a doomed attempt to hold on to the past. There should be a formal split, with players of course able to move to the global t20 circus if they get the chance.
Thought this was an insightful read on the Middlesex forum this morning;
Facts and logic say that Strauss' latest threat is ridiculous.
A good player developed or spotted by a county gets awarded a contract of - say - 2 years' duration minimum. Maybe 3.
He and any other player under a term contract ain't going anywhere for that period unless the "super league franchise" buys the player out. Players are currently contracted for a 12 month period, not the April to September ones of yore.
The Strauss dream of "best playing best" also fails to acknowledge the reality that both player and employer like stability, so each knows where the other will be for the duration of the employment contract.
Each county is at a certain stage of the curve - either declining, advancing or treading water, and will have players both at similar stages, and at varying lengths of commitment to their current employer.
Unless the Strauss dream envisages buying e.g. Sam, playing for Div 2 Middlesex, out of his current contract to enable him to play for a top division team, and face a bought out Matthew Potts playing for another top tier team, which will cost more money, and - effectively - see even more central contracts by default, "best playing the best" is just straight fantasy.
A few years ago, the edict was that you couldn't play for England unless you were in Div 1. I think no one bothered to tell Alastair Cook, or even Strauss, let alone enforce that. So, this dream has come and gone before.
I wonder how long it will be before Strauss remembers his family, and decides he needs to spend more time with them.
If this board representing Warwickshire votes - as we fear it might - in favour of Strauss proposals there's a very real possibility our chances of ever winning the county championship again will be finished.
Relegation a distinct possibility this year and 2023 will be spent in division two there's likely to be no promotion as they'd want 4 down none up to make their ridiculously tiny division of six. From 2024 onwards it'd be one promotion place each season out of 12 counties in the bottom feeder divisions. There's a very real possibility Warwickshire might spend a decade or more sloshing about in such a feral league.
The draft schedule you saw is far superior to what's been reported by the telegraph regards Strauss proposals
Couldn't believe the reference I saw to what games they might consider putting on in August.
A review designed to improve the national side is now committed to helping Zimbabwe, Afghanistan & Scotland too...
🤣🤣🤣
This is Zimbabwe who've more or less given up on first class cricket already and like Ireland/Netherlands are intent to focus on 50 and T20
Back of a fag packet springs to mind. Strauss and his team of accountants have had, what, 6 months to come up with drivel like this????!!!!?
Yes I did see that it was a very good effort it plotted for 2023 or 2024 space for 16 rounds of CC in addition to 3 rounds of whatever red ball cricket they deem worthy not play in August with Blast games on the Fridays from May right through to the start of the hundred. Plenty of scope within that for rest weeks.
I've just read - if you think our fixtures are bad with this enormous gap wait till you hear this - Worcestershire are away this week and next week which means that over a span of 53 days during late July, August and early September their members will have been able to see just 4 measly days of white ball RLODC cricket
It's just shit that is. About time county chiefs got shit like that sorted. Should be Warwick at home one week Worcester at home the following week
Scary to think our CEO might even see merit in this and vote for Warwickshire to become a feeder county. Now we know why we need this SGM calling just in case they're so stupid as to vote this through.
Revealed: Andrew Strauss wants ‘feeder leagues’ as counties fight reform plans
Exclusive: Plan features six-team Premier Division, two lower leagues and play-offs to resolve promotion, relegation and overall champion
Nick Hoult,
CHIEF CRICKET CORRESPONDENT
5 September 2022 • 7:51pm
The new look County Championship proposed by Sir Andrew Strauss will include a six-team Premier Division with two feeder leagues of six underneath competing for a promotional play-off, it can be revealed, but reluctant chairmen are fighting against the plans.
All counties will play at least 10 four-day matches as part of the proposals from Strauss’ high performance review in what would be one of the biggest shake-ups of the English county system in its history.
Teams will play each other home and away with the potential for play-offs to decide the champions in the Premier Division. The winners of the two conferences will play off to decide which of them is promoted to the top flight, with one up, one down proposed.
The 50-over competition will be played in April, the Blast from May onwards, the Hundred in August and the championship mainly in June, July and September, the prime months of the summer instead of being played in early April and the end of September as it is now.
There is also a proposal to play three slots of four-day cricket in August, like festival weeks, that sit outside the championship so counties could still play 14 red-ball games (if they reach the play-off). These will take place during the Hundred, giving Test players some red-ball cricket if needed, as well as those without Hundred contracts. It would also provide members with more four-day cricket with the possibility of inviting teams such as Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Scotland to take part and raise the standard in those countries too.
Strauss is fighting to persuade reluctant counties to accept the idea which needs 12 votes in favour for the change to go through. A ballot of the counties is pencilled in for Sept 20 and intense lobbying is ongoing.
Strauss and members of the high performance review have spent the past couple of weeks meeting counties to outline a vision for domestic cricket from 2024 onwards.
It is understood there is reluctance from some county chairmen to agree to a reduction in four-day championship cricket which is popular with members. The members own 15 of the 18 counties.
Strauss will present the findings of his discussions with the counties to the ECB board on Wednesday, which will be chaired for the first time by Richard Thompson at the start of his five-year term as the board’s new chairman.
Data released recently by the ECB shows English players play 79 days of domestic cricket, which is more than any other country and leaves them with less time to prepare and rest when compared with other nations. It also leaves less time to prepare good pitches which in turn makes the step up to Test level harder.
The ECB’s data discovered that averages for English batsmen drop off significantly in Test cricket compared with county cricket whereas for India, Australia and South Africa there is little difference in comparison. Averages for seamers are also much higher in Test cricket compared with county cricket because they are used to helpful pitches in the championship.
The high performance review was launched after the Ashes defeat and years of underachievement by England’s Test team.
Some overseas 'stars' would still play in it. Main thing is to make a schedule that is sensible benefitting spectators. Like the old Sunday League which worked because every fortnight on a Sunday there was a home game to go to. Plenty of overseas pros would still come. Perhaps they'd play a bit of club cricket at the weekend and help out with the coaching/community work during the week. There'd also be a week or two where there'd be no championship game on so extra Blast games could be slotted in
8 weeks of Fridays 4 home 4 away plus some weeks with extra games on assorted days while the championship takes a breather I think'd be a good compromise avoiding the need to shove championship cricket entirely into April May and September
Interesting from this telegraph article that many counties want the blast to be a mainly Friday night event - this compromise might not suit every fan but could help secure a sensible and familiar schedule for the season instead of the complete dogs dinner we ended up with this year;
Counties are pushing for more Twenty20 Blast matches to be played on Friday nights to better promote the competition as part of changes to the domestic schedule from 2024.
Matches on Friday nights are generally the best supported. This season, the need to finish the group stages of the competition as early as July 3 meant that counties played fewer games on Friday than many would like. Some counties played as few as four T20 Blast matches on Friday nights, and only two at home.
But there is a strong desire among many counties to schedule more T20 Blast matches on Fridays. It is also thought that more regularity in the schedule would make it easier for fans to know when matches are being played and make it easier for them to be able to afford to attend multiple matches over the season – especially significant given the current cost-of-living crisis.
Many counties believe that the congested scheduling of T20 Blast matches undermines support for the competition. This year, for instance, Yorkshire played six home Blast matches in the space of 15 days at the start of the tournament.
The T20 Blast is the most lucrative county competition for the 18 first-class counties, with its commercial significance particularly great among the 10 sides who do not host a team run the Hundred. But there is a strong belief among many counties that the schedule this season did not maximise interest and that greater emphasis should be placed on the ‘Friday Night Blast’ concept.
While other short-format competitions are played in small windows, with matches on every day of the week, many county chiefs would like the Friday night element of the T20 Blast to be at the core of the tournament’s identity.
With the Hundred due to begin at the start of August each year, a number of county chiefs support the T20 Blast running from the middle of May until the end of July, allowing each county to play around eight group games on Friday nights, with four at home.
There is significant support T20 Blast matches being played alongside the County Championship, with Blast matches generally on Fridays and Championship matches running from Sunday to Wednesday. This is viewed as a way of pleasing both members who prefer first-class cricket and fans of the T20 game.
But there remain significant disagreements between counties among many aspects of the domestic schedule, which are being discussed ahead of the county chairs voting on the domestic schedule September 20. A two-thirds majority of the 18 chairs is needed to vote through any changes.
A number of counties – principally the ones that host Hundred venues – favour reducing the group stages of the T20 Blast from its current 14 games to 10, which would mean a reduction from seven to five home games each. But some counties are opposed to any such a cut. There is even some support for increasing the size of the group stages to 16 games, meaning eight home games per side.
My worry is of course all the disagreement between counties will lead to the ECB getting its way with drastic cuts to proper cricket
Friday nights work. Three week windows like in the early days of T20 works. Hybrids don't tend. to. Hundred has the window so Blast should get Friday nights so it stands out has its own identity
Then county championship can have a set Sunday start 14 or perhaps 16 games a season
First and foremost my concern is its impact on the rest of the season and for that reason I've not paid all that much attention to the formats deficiencies. All limited overs forms of cricket are by definition a presentation of a limited set of aspects of the game which is why multi-day 2 innings cricket stands apart and has stood the test of time.
However there is so much I'm reading today about the deficiency of this new format even compared to T20. It's even getting slated on the BBC forum. These are people who've watched the thing pretty closely too; Alarm bells must be ringing
I did try to watch a couple of games but not for me and I call it fairground cricket , roll up roll up who can hit the most sixes , roll up roll up 5 goes on the coconut shy. T20 is the limit for me and people who can only stand to watch 100 balls each side can keep it but I do blame the counties for not keeping their players to contracts .
"
Dave replied:
Agreed, the extra 20 balls makes all the difference. I follow my county players (and former players) and quite a few are coming in at 5 and 6 and have simply had no chance to make any impact, whereas in T20 they can come in same position and turn the game around. It removes the nuance, it's simply a game of good start=win bad start = lose, there's no drama
Yorkshire gives its verdict on the 16.4
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2gXuJq8tZFTHY9gzlf0jpo
Bit simplistic some of the ideas here and i certainly don't agree with his idea or even a need for cutting the championship but overall he's right to vocalise the angst and divisiveness it has caused.
And from the Yorkshire Post
Scrap the 100-ball format and go back to playing T20 - Chris Waters
IT IS a measure of the all-consuming nature of the Yorkshire cricket crisis that I have not had time lately to lambast The Hundred.
But I’m damned if I’m going to let the chance pass by on the final day of its second season.
Whereas last year’s competition was a novelty, with many tuning in to see what the fuss was about, we now have a better idea of the concept in the round.
The main problem with it, as the former Yorkshire and England fast bowler Steve Harmison put it the other day, is that it “just doesn’t work” - a verdict upon which I am unable to improve.
Harmison was articulating what even a blind man wearing a blindfold could see in a pitch-black room - namely, that The Hundred is essentially mediocrity masquerading as excellence.
Forget the peripheral nonsense - the Z-list DJs that no one has heard of, the virtual-reality avatars, the television commentators seemingly high on acid, telling everyone that The Hundred is the best thing since sliced bread.
The concept, the cricket, is simply not good enough.
It is not so much a poor man’s IPL as a beggar’s IPL.
If English cricket is to have a franchise tournament - and it’s too late now to turn back the clock - then let it be a T20 one in line with the IPL and its global counterparts.
The need for a so-called “point of difference” - 16.4 overs per side (100 balls) as opposed to 20 overs per side - backfires for me, regardless of whether that might be best for the television schedulers.
From where I’m sitting, the only real “point of difference” with The Hundred is that it is not as good as T20.
It may not seem much - 100 balls instead of 120, blocks of five balls instead of six-ball overs, and so on - but it equates to unnecessary confusion for players and spectators while the television graphics are all over the shop, which makes the scoring difficult to follow - at least for yours truly.
Of course, I nearly forgot, The Hundred is not for the likes of me, or for Steve Harmison, or for the likes of you perhaps as “proper cricket” lovers.
The Hundred is designed to draw in those who previously thought that “cricket” was a chirping insect - essentially people who don’t like the game but, wooed by the appeal of this incredible new concept, will magically go from apathy and disinterest to pulling sickies at work or at school just to slip into Clean Slate Headingley, say, in their desperation to catch a few overs of a County Championship game.
There is no sign of that transfer of interest happening, of course, and it was never going to happen.
Why, it would be like giving someone a particularly bad novel and expecting their interest in literature to be piqued to the point that they would suddenly start lining their shelves with the work of George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway.
The Hundred is often presented as “the best versus the best”.
Indeed, the low – sorry, the high – performance review presently being carried out by Sir Andrew Strauss and the England and Wales Cricket Board actually states: “The Hundred is committed through to 2028 and is a clear best v best competition.”
Really?
In that case, why are so many big-name players not in it? Why did the likes of Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes pull out of this year’s competition?
There are various reasons such as international schedules and the need for rest, but this is hardly IPL standard or indeed the standard on view in other franchise tournaments.
Next year, The Hundred will not be clashing with England’s games in quite the same way.
But if the concept itself is flawed, the problems will remain.
As Harmison said on talkSPORT: “We’ve got to play Twenty20 cricket. The Hundred just doesn’t work. We’ve got to play Twenty20 cricket in line with the rest of the world.
“We’ve tried this new format. It hasn’t worked. I would question whether it is the best quality because I’ve not seen many games going down to the last ball in the two years, or a higher percentage of games going down to the last set of five.
“I think we’ve got to go back to Twenty20 cricket. We can still market it the same way and I think it will make the competition better and get it closer to what the IPL gives you.
"I think it could be the second-biggest and the second-best quality competition in the world in domestic Twenty20.
“I don’t think The Hundred works. I don’t think players know how to play it. I don’t think players understand it properly and I think that’s why we’re not seeing as many closer contests.”
Hear, hear to that.
Hitherto, my objection to The Hundred was not actually the cricket - each to their own - but rather the collateral damage to the men’s county schedule, and in consequence to Test cricket.
That we had no first-class county cricket last month, for example, was a ridiculous state of affairs and an insult to members and supporters who are frankly taken for granted now.
The damage to England’s chances of success at the highest level – purportedly the main objective of the high performance review – was clear.
Yes, the format has been good for women’s cricket, but the women can play T20 too and The Hundred is not played anywhere else – and with good reason. In its efforts to simplify the sport, it has only made it more confusing while the product is average. What’s not to loathe?
Yep somewhere between 65% and 75% of broadcasting revenue to the English game is directly from just the 6 or 7 home test matches staged in England each season.
This term 'future proofing the game' gets bandied about by proponents of the 16.4 & it's all very well cos we know England can't play India or Australia every year charging £200 a ticket and filling hospitality and pleasing the broadcasters. There will of course be years when Windies or Sri Lanka or NZ are touring instead when tickets and hospitality has to be pegged more reasonably.
Future proofing the game could be achieved in other ways not reliant on a panicky new format.
The income from 1 day of the India test match to the ECB coffers would require 8 of these 16.4 events to match up in terms of revenue generated.
And sure crowds of 19,000 at Edgbaston to watch teams nobody gives a monkeys about is impressive but like I say you'd need 8 of those to match the income generated from a single day of the India test match.
George Dobell recently suggested selling Lord's for development and using just some of the billions from that to build a 55,000 stadium in the south east with a retractable roof thus enabling cricket to be played deep into October and March (perhaps even into winter if the temperature could be regulated) extending the English cricket season
👍
Be nice to see Old Hill back in the league assuming the play off place would go to 2nd spot?
Just wondering in case a place for the mighty Attock has opened up
Congratulations to Smethwick on their first Birmingham League title since 1968 with a game to spare after leading pretty much all season.
Barnt Green or Moseley (Rob Yates and Keith Barker got their reply off to a flier against Halesowen today) will finish second. A poor season for the two jewel's in the Warwickshire League crown Berkswell and Knowle & Dorridge - noticed Dominic Ostler even had a game for Berkswell today and Neil Smith was still playing for Leamington the other week too
One final round next week only one matter to be decided who is promoted along with Wolverhampton from Div 2 - Barnards Green or Lichfield.
The weekend of September 17-18th (and 24th if required) is the play-offs to determine the 2 clubs to be promoted from the 4 feeder leagues, replacing Walsall (their demise continues) and Wem. Worfield managed to stay in the league in their debut season with some occasional assistance from Will Rhodes
Coventry & Nth Warks will be favourites but one of Tamworth, Stourport-on-Severn or Ludlow look like they'll also be promoted
There was also I thought a really detailed response to the Strauss review earlier this week by 'Radlett Ronnie' on the Middlesex forum I thought worth pasting here.
I have had the chance to have a close look at the Strauss document and have a few thoughts about some of it.
• The Review wants England to be at or near the top of all three international formats. Yet is fails to consider the impact of the 100 on those three formats. The Review is therefore deeply flawed. It assumes that the Hundred is “the best v the best” (without any evidence) and that this is the one element of the English game that does not need any reconsideration.
• The Review is clearly not finished. There is a list of 7 unanswered questions on Page 36 . It is also clear that there has been some last minute rethinking. The plan was for change in 2023. Information was to be published on 9 September with a vote on 20 Sep. Hence counties have been hastily arranging EGMs and other consultation exercises. This was to treat the counties with complete disrespect. Now, something seems to have changed. More below.
• The jargon is horrible, “thought leaders”… “performance summit”… “aligned, aspirational England environment”. This sort of language usually suggests an underlying lack of substance.
• Some ideas are in direct opposition to recent ECB policies: smaller Championship Division 1, recently enlarged to 10, from 8; North v South abroad pre-season, tried and recently abandoned by the ECB; the lack of bowling for spinners in first class cricket but scheduling most of that in late Spring and early Autumn; more Lions games, when the most recent was used as a practice match, not even first class.
• The Review stresses that the amount of cricket played in England is higher than elsewhere. There is no consideration of the fact that more cricket means more opportunities for more cricketers, and that cuts in the number of games will mean cuts in playing staffs. In any case, the issue is the scheduling not the number of days’ cricket. Toby Roland-Jones is currently on a period which could mean more than seven weeks without any cricket. Also largely ignored is the fact that the elite players are protected from over-playing by central contracts. Most significantly of all, it ignores the fact that there has been a huge increase in the number of England games. It really is rich for an ECB-commissioned report to preach cutting county games while the ECB greatly increases international fixtures.
• Comparisons with other countries are selective in the Review. It ignores, for instance, the standard of Australian club cricket and the vast Indian population. There is no comparison of games lost to weather in different countries. It does not address, for instance, the fact that Australian states do not play a second short-form competition on top of The Big Bash.
• There is a bland assumption that, in England, less will be better. This flies in the face of evidence from other skills-based activities. Nowhere is there consideration of the possible impact of fewer games on the validity, integrity and value of domestic competitions, especially the championship. Nowhere is there consideration of the impact of fewer games on the use of outgrounds such as Scarborough, Cheltenham or Chesterfield, where the game is taken to venues away from county centres. Nowhere is there consideration of what fewer matches will do for county memberships and wider enthusiasm for the game beyond its shortest versions. Yet there is vague reference to red ball cricket in August.
The Review raises some valid questions. Now that there is a year's delay to any implementation of its implications, is there now any value in rushed consultations? And what form is the vote by county chairs on Sep 20 to take in the light of the extra time now available to consider the Review properly?
https://youtu.be/cRjfdU_dodI
Andrew Cornish discussed ECB's high performance review on a Middlesex vlog
Seems calm and measured
https://www.lords.org/lords/news-stories/mcc-world-cricket-committee-renews-calls-to-speed
Such measures could include the use of a countdown clock between overs and the on-going assessment of the DRS process, to ensure players and umpires remain vigilant on moving the game forward
Penalty runs also
Long overdue some of this. Days 1&2 of the India test over rates were outrageous
Would this be trialled at a county match I wonder?